by Olivia Beavers · February 12, 2018
Two top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are questioning former national security adviser Susan Rice about an “unusual” message she sent to herself on Jan 20, 2017 — President Trump’s Inauguration Day.

“It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation,” they wrote in a letter to Rice.

They said that in the message, Rice noted how Obama repeatedly emphasized during the meeting on Russian election hacking with Comey that he wants every aspect of the issue handled “by the book.”

“The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book,” Rice wrote, according to an excerpt included in the senators’ letter.

Grassley and Graham said despite her repeated mention of Obama stressing the need for a proper investigation, “substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book.’”

They asked Rice to address roughly a dozen questions related to her note and what she knew at the time about the Russia investigation, like whether she has “any reason to dispute the timestamp of the email” as well as other surrounding circumstances of her note.

They said they found record of her note through the National Archives, which preserves files from a presidential administration.

The GOP senators’ own unusual letter comes at a time when Republicans are intensely scrutinizing whether Obama-era officials sought to damage Trump’s presidential campaign during last year’s election.

Earlier this month, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a classified memo detailing claims that the FBI and Justice Department misled a clandestine spy court in an surveillance warrant application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

The memo, drafted by the staff of Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), argues in part that federal authorities failed to disclose the key fact that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee partially funded the controversial dossier alleging ties between Trump and Russia, which was used in part to obtain the surveillance warrant against Page. The judge overseeing this particular case, however, was notified that the information came from a politically motivated source.

Trump said the Nunes memo vindicates him in the Russia probe, while other GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), said it does not impact special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference.

Graham and Grassley also asked Rice what she knew about the surveillance application to obtain a warrant on Page at the time she sent her note.

Two senior Democrats on the Judiciary committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), were carbon copied on the letter to Rice, but neither signed off on it.

Spokespeople for Feinstein and Whitehouse did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Republican letter.